Race to the Next World

The hallways were quiet. Only one person was walking through the silent halls. He didn’t try to walk too fast despite having somewhere to be. This person usually isn’t up this late but he had a feeling that a friend of his would be. So he decided to go see him, maybe to try and calm him down.

Its never this quiet, but the time was so late.

It seemed easier to get around with everyone off in their rooms. He could easily walk around, not having to say a word to anyone he might recognize if they were there. The silence didn’t bother him.

As he walked, the lights began to get dimmer. The sound of his boots on the metal ground echoed while he walked slowly. He stopped in front of a titanium door and pressed his hand to a scanner up on the wall. When the system identified him, the door opened and it didn’t take him long to give out a heavy sigh; he just had a little hope that his friend would not be here, that it would be just an empty work out facility and he would be able to leave. All that hope went away the second he saw his friend.

“Sirus! Can’t you go somewhere else at four in the morning?” he asked loudly as he walked inside.

It was typical to find Sirus here at this time. His friend knew but still he found himself trying to stop Sirus anyway. He doesn’t know why but he told himself that it was the requirement to being a good friend.

He was alarmingly worried for Sirus as well. “I thought you got injured earlier.” he continued as he moved around. Sirus wanted to pay no attention to him but with him around, there would only be so much he’d be able to hide.

“What? Injured? When?” Sirus pretended like he didn’t know anything but his sarcasm was bleak.

“I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t see you get hit on your leg and walk it off like it didn’t happen.” he rolled his eyes and looked down at the monitor just to see Sirus’ health condition. There were red flashes on the simulator of a human body. “How much of a beating did you take, Sirus?” he was shocked to see so many red flashes.

“I’m not hurt, Serberous. I didn’t take a beating either. You must be seeing things.” Sirus continued as if the pain didn’t bother him, and it truly didn’t. He can get over the slight heat and the throbbing.

He had on a long sleeve black shirt just to hide the bruises that covered his arms. The pain that was most prominent was at his thigh but he didn’t pay attention to it after a while. The second he had the chance to change out of his suit earlier, he decided it would be best that he found something that would cover the bruises and swollen wounds because someone would definitely say something about it to a medical professional.

Serberous thought it wasn’t healthy. He knew that Sirus has a tendency to skip out on doing checks with a doctor and let his wounds heal on their own but that takes too long. If Sirus were to break his arm, no one would find out about it unless they pestered him. Serberous just gave him a knowing look which really wasn’t as hopeful.

He figured that Sirus would again have trouble sleeping. How many years has he known Sirus to not take care of himself? Serberous still has that bit of hope that one day Sirus will chill out for ten minutes but it doesn’t work like that. He was the caring friend, and here he was about to care about Sirus, a person that will brush off anyone’s compassion to the floor and step on it.

“Its four in the morning,” Serberous said and leaned against the post. Sirus continued lifting himself anyway. “You might as well just take medication and go to sleep.” he said easily but Sirus ignored him. And he would keep ignoring the subject.

“What are you doing at four in the morning?” Sirus asked as he stopped moving. His hands were holding on tightly to the metal bar but he didn’t think to pull himself up again; he just held his weight as he looked at his friend. Serberous was a distraction but he was going to let that go for now.

“Had too much caffeine for our tests earlier.” Serberous answered plainly as he crossed his arms. “Just leave. Is it Diesal that’s causing you problems?” he asked.

“What? No. She’s the only person that doesn’t bother me.” Sirus said as he let go of the bar and landed on his feet. Serberous caught his glare but he just rolled his eyes and looked somewhere else. “I’m fine, okay. Not sleeping won’t kill me.”

“You’re mental.”

“Am not.”

“Just talk to someone about it.” Serberous pressed on with the subject. “You claim you’ve had your fair share of traumatic experiences. Fine. Whatever. But you can’t just swallow that up like its nothing.” Serberous said.

“Who are you?” Sirus asked and looked up at him as he took off his gloves. “When did you become so nice, huh? When did you decide it was okay to get in my business?”

“Listen, at first I couldn’t care less if you blew yourself up or not.” Serberous admitted to shut Sirus up. “Then I thought, ’hey, this guy is actually really good at what he does, and it would suck if he just blew up because he’s been hurting himself’.” Serberous said and stood up straight to look down at Sirus.

“Whatever.”

“I’m telling Diesal.” Serberous thought it would have been a threat but Sirus didn’t get that scared. Serberous was more interested in seeing if Diesal would actually do something about Sirus’ reckless behavior.

“I hope you know she doesn’t care what happens to me.” Sirus tagged along behind him when he walked away.

He didn’t have anything better to do; before he planned on just working out until his body couldn’t take it like usual but now he had Serberous to talk to.

Whenever someone mentions Diesal, he has a lot to complain about. But there’s a lot more good points he has to say which isn’t like him either. She does leave him alone, and she does let him do whatever he wants. She doesn’t nag him, she doesn’t pester him, she doesn’t make him do unnecessary work. As long as they aren’t bothering each other, he doesn’t care.

But then there was that one major thing he has to complain about.

“I’m serious, Serberous.” Sirus insisted when he laughed. “If I end up dying out in space, find her because its her fault.” he was definitely serious.

“Request someone else.” Serberous suggested.

“And get paired up with another snobby bitch? I don’t fucking think so.” Sirus said bitterly as he walked beside him. “Its bad enough that I have to deal with a bunch of them, and I got extremely lucky when Diesal turned out to not be as annoying as the rest of them.” he said.

“Your teamwork skills are terrible.”

Sirus shrugged.

“That’s what happens when you get fucked up on the first try.” Sirus sighed but he didn’t think it was a big deal now.

Although, he still stresses out about it. His first partner wasn’t the greatest to him. In fact, his first partner was the one who did scar Sirus terribly. Sirus wasn’t always the asshole that he is now. If it weren’t for what happened to him three years ago, he would just be a person who minds his own business. Now, he snaps back at people, doesn’t feel the need to listen to anyone, and will step on and crush everyone’s dream. In reality, Sirus doesn’t care. The only person he needs to worry about is himself. But he stresses out about it anyway.

He doesn’t sleep as much as people thought he did. He doesn’t understand when people truly care about him. He doesn’t get what its like to work as a team. He’d prefer to be alone.

Serberous doesn’t know all the details about what happened to Sirus, but its enough for him to know to keep his distance. There was a lot that happened apparently, and only a few people know about it. None of the officials were going to disclose any information about it to anyone. If someone was going to have to talk, its going to have to be Sirus.

As they walked, they saw someone sitting against the wall, looking outside to one of the larger windows that showed the view of space. There was nothing out there but they watched anyway. Sirus would’ve continued walking but Serberous stopped to stare for a few seconds.

“Who’s that?” Sirus asked, genuinely curious but Serberous gave him an annoyed look. “What?”

“Are we really about to have this conversation again?” he asked.

“I seriously don’t...oh.” Sirus said when he finally remembered and looked over to the white haired boy who was staring out the window.

He couldn’t understand how someone couldn’t get bored staring out into the abyss of space anyway. There hasn’t been anything to see for years, and it was actually annoying to watch that boy just sit there and do nothing.

“What’s his problem, anyway? There’s nothing outside.” Sirus asked.

“Aurora gets bored easily, and when that happens, he just sits around and sulk.” Serberous said about his partner. “Apparently, there’s not a lot happening lately.” he sighed. He was about to continue talking about him but he didn’t catch Sirus’ unappealing face.

“I don’t care.” Sirus said plainly.

Serberous has a habit of talking about everyone to everyone. Sirus has to come out and say that he doesn’t care because giving a sarcastic look isn’t enough.

Sirus really doesn’t care about other people.

“You should show a little-”

“No.” Sirus turned to walk the other way before Serberous could finish. When he said he didn’t care, he really meant it.

Serberous wasn’t going to go after Sirus now, he did enough just by getting Sirus to leave that workout facility. Now the rest was up to whoever crossed paths with him. Tomorrow would be another quiet day but again, Sirus would be nowhere to be found. Like usual.

Sirus walked the halls alone, wondering what he could do until he felt tired enough to fall asleep. There was a number of work related things but he would rather put that off until there was something putting his life at risk. He wasn’t up for dealing with anything work related at the moment. It brought too much stress and he would rather not punch a wall.

Sometimes, he thinks about what happens to him, other times he stops caring. He can say for sure that if what happened didn’t happen, he wouldn’t have the certain handicaps that he has now.

What was he going to do about it?

Nothing. He thought it was his fault in the beginning that he was put into harms way despite his partner actually being mentally unstable to work in the field. Sirus still thinks that everything was his fault. Everyone had to keep quiet because of him, because they weren’t sure if he was going to live through it or not. Even now, no one says a word, everyone tries to pretend like what happened didn’t happen.

Sirus wouldn’t have so many problems if his first partner didn’t try to kill him in the most gruesome way possible. And if he didn’t take it out on him the way he did, he wouldn’t have the inability to deal with the stress.

He stopped walking and stared down the hall.

It pissed him off that he could let something like that happen. It was his fault. If he had known, none of it would have happened. If only he did have the guts to request someone else when he thought something else was wrong. If he were more focused on himself, nothing would have happened to him.

It was a while before he snapped out of his trance. When he did however, he saw that someone was standing in front of him. At first, he only got the view of vibrant white hair, but he looked down to see a young woman’s face. She stared at him plainly, waiting for him to come to his senses. She wasn’t in uniform, she was more or less dressed as if she just got out of bed.

“I’d prefer if you would stop going missing.” she said casually and turned around, hiding her face. She wanted to pretend like she didn’t care, and sometimes, it was believable. Now however, not so much. Why did she leave her room at four in the morning? Was it just to find where Sirus went?

“Since when do you care?” Sirus asked her as she began walking away.

She was his current partner. She wasn’t as frail as people described her. She wasn’t as weak either. Against Sirus, she stood her ground right from the beginning which got him to back off from her. Once she established that she had little interest in him, it just made Sirus feel even better about picking her.

She kept her white hair down to cover the scar on her ears. No one has seen her tie her hair up like she used to in a few months. Was it because of Sirus?

“Its actually cold in bed without you.” She glanced back.

Sirus took heavy interest in that.

He couldn’t hold back his smile as he tagged along behind Diesal. Now he has something to do that will take up the rest of his morning. She can’t complain about not getting any sleep now because she definitely was asking for it. Sirus didn’t need to say anything to her comment, he just held a smug smile on his face and walked behind her.

It was easy getting along with Diesal. They always did their work separately. There was also no need for them to do more than they needed to. And their relationship wasn’t half bad either.

Sirus was okay with it being this easy.

Then again, he would say that he was getting bored. Everything has become so routine that even that stresses him out when its not supposed to. He wanted this job of his to remain easy, but that’s not only what he signed up for.

He thought it would be fun.

Sure, he knew he was risking his life to fight with the army, but he indeed thought that it should be something interesting. Going outside of the ship should be cool, at least in his terms. However, there wasn’t as much to do when the other nations lay low. And Diesal was so easy going that Sirus barely had to do anything. He hated his other partners because they did way too much, compared to Diesal. And it was never a challenge.

What’s the point if everything is supposed to be the same?

Should he switch partners again?

Diesal always minded her own business. If it wasn’t her problem, she would stay out of it. If it wasn’t about her, she wouldn’t ask about it. If it didn’t require her to be around, she wouldn’t be there. She was like Sirus in that sense. So why does he think that he should find someone else again? Chances are he gets stuck with someone he hates, or someone so mentally unstable that they end up trying to kill him.

If he were to get stuck with a person like that again, he might actually resign.

He was going to hold off on thinking about requesting someone else for a while.

Like usual, no one could find him the next day, that is until Serberous decided to think like Sirus and rule out all the possible places he could actually be. Sirus isn’t the type to have hidden interests so its not like he would be secretive to do something he liked. He wouldn’t be with others unless a fight broke out among Flyers. Based on the time that it was, he definitely wouldn’t be with Diesal. There were a few places that Serberous could check but he found himself going to one place only.

There were only a few Flyers around where Sirus was sitting. Serberous walked around the open area and sat at Sirus’ table, and didn’t say anything as Sirus continued to watch a simulation on his tablet. When the silence drew on long enough, Serberous kicked his leg under the table.

“What the absolute fu-” Sirus stopped his sudden yelling when he saw it was Serberous. “Oh, its just you.” he said bitterly and put his head down on his arm again.

“So I’ve been thinking-”

“I don’t care.” Sirus groaned.

“Whatever.” Serberous waved off the comment and started over. “So I’ve been thinking why don’t you just switch partners?” he asked curiously.

“No.”

“Wouldn’t it be a logical thing for you to just request Aurora as your partner?” he asked casually. Sirus pressed his finger on the screen of his white tablet and looked up to Serberous. “You know, number one Flyer, number one Coordinator, greatest force in the field.” Serberous had to spell it out for him.

Sirus had a big thing for loyalty, so he was confused why Serberous was giving up his partner just for him. He could ask about it, but that would mean that he cares but he doesn’t. He wasn’t going to ask why Serberous just suddenly wanted to let him request his Coordinator to be his partner.

“No.” he repeated again and tapped his finger on the screen to show the hologram again.

“You’re doing the American Nations a disservice.” Serberous urged.

“My life is a disservice. You don’t see me complaining.” Sirus said bitterly and tried to pay attention to the simulator. Serberous was about to say something else but the second he took a breath, Sirus sat up and showed his immense distaste for the subject. “My answer is no, Serberous. Not only am I not interested in changing partners, I also do not care to switch partners to be with him.”

Serberous was close to interject but Sirus wasn’t finished.

“And I don’t care who he is, what he does, and how he does it. Diesal makes things easy and I would like to keep it that way.” Sirus snapped when he saw that Serberous was about to continue.

“It has to get boring.”

That poked a nerve.

“You clearly didn’t hear me, did you?” Sirus rose his voice.

“Don’t you think you deserve someone that brings out your best potential-”

“You know what, Serberous? Bite me, okay. I said I don’t care.” Sirus got up abruptly and picked his tablet off the table to leave.

What he didn’t need was to be pestered about changing partners when he planned to decide on it another time. He wasn’t interested in being paired with Aurora even if he was the best Coordinator. It didn’t matter. Diesal has her faults, her many faults, but Sirus wanted to keep this as easy as possible. The second he is labeled under the title as top force in the field, things will get difficult, and he does not want or need that burden.

He grumbled his curses as he walked down a low lit hall. He was hoping that Diesal wasn’t in their room because he would prefer to be alone. He would stay in the Flyer’s section of the deck but there’s enough people that don’t like him already and he doesn’t want to pick a fight.

There was someone walking beside him but he pretended not to notice. This girl was his height, and she walked with her hands behind her back. Her hair was straight and thin, but her roots were white while the rest of her hair was shiny black. Her suit matched the same color as well, black enough to match with the darkness of space. She kept her pace with Sirus and he did his best to not get annoyed but that barely lasted a few seconds before he stopped walking and faced her.

“What?” his voice came out quiet because he was a second away from snapping. She didn’t answer as she smiled at him. “Hariette! What!” he finally lost it.

“Look a little pissed off there.” She continued to smile.

Sirus had a number of things that he could say to her just to get back at her. If he really wanted to cross the line, he could just mention her hair because she really couldn’t fool anyone with the black dye. She doesn’t want to give in to her genes and let her white hair grow out, and Sirus could easily point this out but he didn’t. He knows Hariette far better and he knows that she wouldn’t give in to petty statements that try to get her to crumble. She has no time to let others know she’s self conscious.

“I just like annoying you, Sirus. I have nothing.” she said and glanced over to him with her dark brown eyes.

Sirus couldn’t understand why people do that for no reason. He thought he did nothing wrong, so why is he getting bothered? Now Hariette was here to talk to him and he honestly just wanted to go sit by himself somewhere to finish watching his simulator.

“You and Serberous both.” he muttered as he continued to talk.

“Oh really? I wonder what he did to you this time.” Hariette was curious as she walked beside him. “There’s a lot of things that annoy you so I’m sure its not that bad.”

“He just wants me to switch partners.” Sirus answered.

Hariette was confused. She didn’t think Serberous would care enough to suggest something to Sirus; he knows very well that Sirus doesn’t care so why do it? Hariette kept her puzzled expression and spoke, “That’s weird. With who?” she was curious.

There has to be a reason why Serberous said something. Now she was very interested to know. Unlike Sirus, Hariette was always curious about the affairs of people. She knows more than what people give her credit for.

“With Aurora-”

Hariette just burst out laughing. “That’s a good one.” she couldn’t control it.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.” she covered her mouth. “Its a great idea to be honest, but I’m shocked that he thought you would actually go through with it.” she couldn’t stop laughing. Sirus sighed, aggravated that she continued to laugh like it was funny.

“Do you know him?”

“I know of him.” She stated clearly. “I haven’t worked with him, but I hear he makes simulations fun. Something about letting Flyers try out the master settings.” she shrugged. “Oh. And I hear he’s really smart.”

“Anything better?” Sirus stopped walking.

“Hm. Well I know he’s aiming to be Commander.” Hariette said.

“That’s just perfect.” Sirus said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes. “Like I really need to be paired up with a control freak. I can’t believe Serberous thought that would be a good idea.”

“You never know until you try.” Hariette shrugged again and smiled.

Sirus didn’t want to try. The second he requests a new partner and gets approved, Diesal is gone. He went through a lot just to be her partner, considering the fact that he had enough care in the world to want to be her partner, and now he was supposed to just give her up to be paired with someone that would make him miserable?

He wasn’t sure that idea was a good one despite hearing two people say that it would be. He didn’t want to take advice from others. He shouldn’t have to hear this from people that shouldn’t care. If the two of them thought it was a good idea, what would others think? He wasn’t going to ask.

The last time he tried, he barely lived to see another day. The last time he put in effort to something he thought he enjoyed, someone almost killed him. The last time he was under the impression that he was doing something right, he got himself in such a terrible situation that it involved all the officials.

So he definitely wasn’t going to try.

“Whatever.” Sirus muttered unhappily.

“You’ll never make friends with that bad attit-”

“Fuck off, Hariette.” he said and walked away from her, not giving her a second glance. She just smiled widely and turned away to go the opposite direction. She did say that she liked annoying him the most.

Sirus planned to hide away for the rest of the day but he knew for a fact that Serberous would come find him. He’s the only one that’s interested in trying to ruin Sirus’ life, at least that’s what he thought. If he could get away for another day, he might be able to gain the energy needed to deal with Serberous.

Sirus hates people that don’t mind their own business. The reason he’s not tossing Serberous to the side is that they’ve been friends for a while. But it was actually pissing him off because he’s being serious.

During the middle of the night, Sirus was in the place that he always goes to when he couldn’t sleep. The best way to deal with stress is to work it off. Not that its worked for him much lately but he hasn’t stopped trying. If he could get one night of sleep, that would be great. He planned to just run until he was too tired to stand. That doesn’t happen often but he would try anyway.

His health has been getting worse. He hasn’t been sleeping or eating. He pretends like his wounds don’t bother him but when he overworks himself, he makes it worse to handle. He can’t ever just stop for a moment and find peace. The more he thinks about what happens to him, the worse everything else gets. It wasn’t helpful that Serberous was pressuring him to do something he didn’t want because that was adding to the stress.

It was a lot to think about.

He thought Diesal was just fine enough. The bare minimum was fine enough. Its not like he joined the field to make something out of it. Sure he was fighting for his nation but that wasn’t his main reason. He liked how Diesal would stay put or not go too far. He liked not having to watch her all the time because she knows to mind her own business.

He likes not having to have added stress because of her.

He’s been unlucky before. He’s gotten Coordinators that would step into every problem, into every situation, into everyone’s business. He’s been paired with the ones who have superiority complexes. He’s been paired with the ones that had to go off on adventures to find new things to create. Sirus doesn’t really want to put his hands on the weak but he’s been provoked to.

His first Coordinator was a complete psycho.

And then the accidents happened.

He really doesn’t want to take his chances again. Its not random like it has been before but he just doesn’t know if its a good idea to suddenly switch. He just got with Diesal and everything has been quiet with her as his partner. Why switch now?

Sirus was pretty much expecting Serberous to show up. Now he was confused and actually wanted to talk about it. Sirus would most likely reaffirm his answer but Serberous was the only outlet he had to do that. As long as Serberous says something out of line, Sirus will remember why he doesn’t want to change partners.

That’s fine with him.

“I thought you injured your leg.” Serberous said casually as he leaned against the wall next to the machine. Sirus just gave him a look as he continued to run. Clearly he wasn’t injured. “Anyway-”

“I really enjoyed this talk with you but my answer is no.” That was all Sirus needed. He didn’t think Serberous actually speaking would provoke him to really stand by his answer much harder than he did before but it was enough.

“Diesal is like-”

“Diesal doesn’t do stupid shit she isn’t supposed to.” Sirus said. “Diesal doesn’t randomly go off and play with things and make a mess. Diesal minds her own business.” he looked down at Serberous as he ran.

“That’s so lame.”

“I’m not you.” Sirus said.

“Coordinators are fun because they do cool things.” Serberous was going to try and be persuasive but Sirus rolled his eyes. Serberous was one of the few other Flyers who really didn’t have anything bad to say about Coordinators. “Sirus, you have to admit I’m right.” he said.

“So what? That won’t change anything.” he said and stopped the machine. “How long have you been paired with Aurora anyway?”

“Two years.”

“And you really want me to step all over that, Serberous, really? You have to have a good reason for wanting to hand him off to someone else.” he said.

“I’m going to be the one to take credit when they give you an awesome title.” Serberous said plainly.

Sirus wanted to hit him, he even rose his hand like he was about to but he stopped halfway. Serberous wasn’t going to tell the truth but messing around wasn’t going to get anywhere with Sirus. Serberous wasn’t doing it for the credit, its not like he would tell everyone he got the two together. He doesn’t care that much. He just thinks that Sirus deserves it. He also thinks that Aurora is nice, and might be able to relieve some of that stress that Sirus keeps holding on to. Diesal doesn’t have a care in the world about anything, how can someone be partnered with that? Serberous thought it was absurd.

“I like Coordinators that don’t go off and do things they aren’t supposed to. My last partner went around hacking the Computer just for fun. And I thought that was the behavior that gets people killed so I wasn’t having it.” Sirus explained himself.

Already that rose red flags in Serberous’ mind.

“Wait a minute, what?-”

“Plus Aurora wants to be Commander. Whatever. That’s great. But I’m not going to be paired up with someone that might just be as insane as Commander Picses.” he had to get out there.

“He’s not insane.” Serberous thought Sirus was exaggerating.

“You know I’m not taking your word for it.”

“I’m pretty sure your first partner is as insane as they come. And after his freak accident, I’m also sure you don’t have to worry about another psycho being paired with you.” Serberous wanted to make him feel at ease but it wasn’t very helpful at all.

Sirus looked around plainly before he opened his mouth and said, “I was the freak accident.”

Serberous didn’t understand.

“The officials just said he’s detained, but I killed him.” Sirus mentioned plainly as if it didn’t bother him.

Its not like he told Serberous the entire truth. Everyone thinks the psycho Coordinator is off somewhere for his extreme sentence, but he’s been dead for three years now. The officials were in extreme shock about the entire situation and didn’t know how to handle either of what happened.

What really stresses Sirus out is that he got his partner’s blood on his hands.

Everything that Serberous had on his mind just got answered. Sirus knows anything can happen. Being with Diesal makes things easier. He just didn’t want her to get in a situation like he was in. Does that mean he actually cares? There’s no other way to say it. If she minds her own business, she won’t do anything that gets her hurt. Another Flyer won’t get provoked enough to kill her.

He knows what its like.

Serberous wanted to say something about it but he couldn’t find the words. He honestly felt even more assured that Sirus should switch partners but he wasn’t going to say that aloud right then and there when Sirus so clearly admitted what keeps him up at night. He shouldn’t be so shocked. Then again, he didn’t think that Sirus would honestly kill someone.

He wasn’t like how he is now back when he was fourteen.

Things changed.

He had to change.

Serberous didn’t try to say anything, at least about that situation. That was definitely enough for the night. He knew that he would have to hold that secret with him until he dies. He wouldn’t tell anyone anyway. Serberous was about to sigh and talk about something else when he noticed that Sirus turned away and was about to start running again like nothing happened.

The one thing that Serberous wants is for Sirus to go to bed once. Its been four days. He could see the dark circles under Sirus’ eyes from not sleeping.

Before Sirus could start the machine again, Serberous hit his right thigh where Sirus was supposed to have been hurt; he hit his thigh hard enough for Sirus to finally notice the pain. The sudden shock was enough for Sirus to lose his balance and fall to his other knee and clutch his leg.

“Ah!-you bitch!” Sirus just about shouted.

“Get checked!” Serberous said down to him. “I’m tired of trying to be the good friend and watch over you. You say you hate people that do stupid stuff, well stop hating yourself. What happened happened, and there’s no reason for you to ruin yourself over it.” Serberous said angrily and walked away.

“I want to slap your entire face,” Sirus groaned.

“Bite me.” Serberous said loudly as he left, smiling.

If the pain doesn’t get through to Sirus then nothing will. The extreme pain was enough for him to deal with; the cramping began and it was going to take more than just trying to walk it off to help him get over it. He cursed loudly when he couldn’t stand up straight.

Serberous really knows how to get him to listen.

Its not like he got any sleep, but the next day, Sirus did go in to get his wounds checked and healed like he was supposed to two days ago. He’s not found of taking medications so he does his best to avoid it. But when Serberous gets violent and decides to literally hit him where it hurts, he has no choice but to go in.

Sirus also decided to go and talk to Commander Picses. He wasn’t sure of himself but Serberous was annoying him so to shut him up, he was going to make a request he truly didn’t want.

Was it a good idea to be paired with someone that everyone knows?

No. Sirus will never be able to hide under the radar again.

Was it a good idea to be paired with someone that was goal orientated?

No. Sirus was going to have to put up with that behavior and that’s never a good thing.

He wanted to stop himself from walking into Picses’ command room, but he just didn’t. Its not like he was convincing himself that he was doing the right thing. He knows its wrong. He knows that what he’s doing defies everything he stands for. He just didn’t stop himself. The idea was leaving him feeling bitter, very bitter.

If his attitude wasn’t bad enough, its about to get worse.

There was a young man standing near a few holograms. It wasn’t unusual to see a scowl on his face, however he looked so young; his black hair was long and curly, reaching to his shoulders but it won’t be long before he decides to cut his hair. He wasn’t as big as the other officials but he was force to be reckoned with. There were quite a few badges on his black jacket, enough to make him a highly respected official. Its obvious that he did work hard to get where he was standing.

The only person he would clash with is Sirus.

Them being together in the same room was never a good thing. At all. Carsus was the one that did train Sirus, but he was actually hoping that his behavior wouldn’t have turned out as bad as it actually did.

“...Sirus, what...are you doing here?” Carsus was the first to see him and he was shocked because no one needed to see Sirus. He turned off the hologram at the center of the room to face Sirus.

Carsus was really under the impression that no one needed Sirus unless someone else made a complaint against him or he had another warning that would put him on probation yet again. Sirus never willingly walks into Picses’ command room except for one reason.

Carsus’ expression changed quickly and he looked over to Picses who was standing near the thick glass that lead to the view of space. There was nothing to see but he stares out the glass anyway. Its the same habit Aurora has.

Sirus really wasn’t happy, especially when he made that connection.

“I actually want to make a request.” Sirus said.

As much as Carsus wanted to deny Sirus the request, he knew the rules. Carsus would be the only one brave enough to set Sirus straight but with Picses around, it doesn’t happen like that. So he had to hide his disgusted face and swallow his pride to let Sirus have what he wants.

They both heard Picses laugh as he turned around, stroking his white beard. He looked amused. Picses never seemed to take anything seriously until things got...well, serious. He thought it was funny that Sirus was back again to make another request. Its only been a few months since he’s been paired with his new partner and already he snapped. That’s what Picses thought.

Sirus had other reasons.

“Do you have a preference, Sirus?” Picses asked.

“Aurora.”

Picses laughed loudly and Carsus was bewildered by the sudden amusement. He wasn’t supposed to find this funny, Carsus thought it was a terrible idea. He was the only other person that thought so along side with Sirus.

“Sir, this is not funny.” Carsus said. “We don’t need Aurora becoming rebellious as he is.” Carsus was desperate. He knows Sirus, he knows what Sirus does, and he would prefer if he left the other Coordinators alone.

“Relax, Carsus. Its not that serious.” Picses was still laughing, his old freckled face turning bright red. “However, I do not believe it will last long.” he admitted. “I give it two weeks before either of them snap.”

Sirus wasn’t offended by the comment. If he gets out of the partnership in two weeks, that definitely would not bother him. That’s enough time for him to figure out if he’s really going to settle for a goal orientated control freak, or just save himself the stress and walk away.

“Your request will be effective in forty-eight hours.” Picses said. “I would like to hope that you last longer than two weeks, Sirus.” Picses was slightly begging but when he saw Sirus roll his eyes before he walked away, he laughed.

Carsus didn’t want Picses to tolerate the disrespect but he had to hold in his outburst because there was nothing else he could do.

Sirus was still convinced that he was making a mistake. Its not that he had a bad feeling about what he just did, but he knew that somewhere in the future, it wasn’t going to work out as easily as his friend thinks it will.